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COMMENTARY
March 20, 2002
Play it again, Sam
Appearances aren't everything but they are something and it appears that Dick Cheney's tour of Middle Eastern capitals has been a dismal failure. He failed to get the "moderate" Arab regimes to listen up about Saddam Hussein; instead they wanted to discuss Palestine and talked his ear off on this. Rather than contradict what the vice president was telling them -- in his practised culturally sensitive way for Mr. Cheney is an old Arab hand -- they simply and persistently changed the subject. To these regimes -- we might call Saudi Arabia and Egypt for convenience the "axis of moderation" -- Afghanistan was a side issue. It was inconvenient for them to lose the "summer camp" to which they had been dispatching Islamist terrorists who might otherwise be trouble at home. But otherwise the new pro-Western government in Kabul is of less significance to them than the new U.S. allies in former-Soviet Central Asia since the Afghans don't seem to be sitting on oil. Even to the Saudis non-Arab Afghanistan in the mountains beyond the deserts of Baluchistan and Makran is nowhere. Whereas Iraq is the second-biggest oilwell on Arab Street. And a pro-Western regime in Baghdad would change catastrophically for the old regimes the whole balance of power in the region. Saddam is not merely the devil they know -- one now far more likely to drop a poison-tipped Scud on Israel than on any of them. The prospect of a new regime for such a powerful neighbour and in particular one which espouses Western-style democracy (which is quite certainly what the U.S. would install) truly horrifies them. It would be extremely destabilizing providing their people with the model for a way forward that is neither Sheik-autocratic nor Islamo-fanatic. So it is no surprise that none of them wants to think about it. On the other hand to be fair to their judgement when they do think about it they realize that something could be worse than a successful U.S.-imposed regime-change in Iraq; and that would be an unsuccessful incursion -- a war that spread beyond Iraq's borders setting fires within their own. Thus when the Americans do go in they are unlikely to interfere. Mr. Cheney was there to say get ready and though they pretended not to hear they heard. There is an element of desperation in their trying to change the subject dramatically to Palestine after decades of leaving the Palestinians to their fate. And the Palestinians themselves -- who for decades have been treated little better than the Filipina maids when guest-labouring in the oil-bearing sheikdoms -- know better than to think their Arab brothers are really standing behind them. Yasser Arafat wouldn't be making his regular supplications to the United States if he thought he had reliable friends. (As a Palestinian writer in Bethlehem once said to me With friends like these, who needs Israelis? ) Nevertheless surrounded by a whole Arab world demanding the U.S. do something about the crisis in Palestine and Europeans pretending to be helpful President Bush and Mr. Cheney found themselves obliged to send the latter to Tel Aviv. Having no new peace script -- I am told several new ones were actually considered but the actors rejected them all as unspeakable -- Mr. Cheney finds himself trying to bunt the old one the Mitchell-Tenet one the one that never makes it to first base. But even the same old words acquire new meanings in new contexts. The Arab states are trying effectively to obtain a trade. In its crudest terms: "You can 'do' Iraq if first you 'do' Israel by forcing them to accept something resembling the Saudi Arabian 'peace initiative'." The weakness in their position is of course that the U.S. doesn't need Arab permission to "do" Iraq. Turkish bases and aircraft carriers would be adequate; plus Israeli help in a pinch. On the other hand there is a hint of idealism in this unspoken Arab "offer". For the truth is democracy in Iraq plus genuine peace with Israel would surely spell doom for the House of Saud. The Israeli b?te noire is their other prop. They can't really believe it could happen. More likely it presents itself thanks to the recent explosion of violence as the only available delaying tactic; and what appears to be pursued with unprecedented self-confidence is in fact a grasp for straws. From the American side the poverty of ideas is beginning to tell. The overall U.S. strategy is a good one -- Iraq next -- but my sense is that the implications of the strategy have still not been thoroughly digested. The fact that toppling Saddam however necessary will be radically destabilizing of the Middle Eastern order has to my mind still not been taken in at least not in all of its ramifications. The Bush administration has been ordering elaborate contingency plans should anything go wrong; they may not be prepared if everything goes right. In Mr. Cheney's practised hands regional stability is almost the ultimate goal of U.S. policy. It has become nuanced in a new way. The U.S. is now pressing its "friends" both overtly and subtly to become more democratic to acknowledge human rights the rule of law motherhood and apple pie. They are writing conditions into aid agreements both civil and military to its military allies. The secretary Colin Powell has this year made a much bigger issue of the State Department's human rights reports and has been willing to say aloud -- about the Uzbeki regime of Islam Karimov for instance -- things no U.S. administration has ever said before about an ally. Even President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has received an earful though not publicly. (Saudi Arabia's crown prince Abdullah protects himself against such hectoring by going berserk the moment it starts.) But is regional stability in the U.S. or more generally in the Western interest? It is only when the question is asked thus directly that the overall strategic situation begins to emerge. For someone of Mr. Cheney's vintage -- an oil man who in business and government has spent much of his adult life coping with Arab eccentricities -- the answer is self-evidently yes . For President Bush who has the inestimable advantage of coming new and fresh to many of these previously insoluble problems the answer is perhaps maybe . To my mind the answer is certainly no . The reality is that the U.S. is both hated and feared throughout the region. The problem is to reduce the hatred while increasing the fear. Making concessions to the "axis of moderation" has the effect of increasing the hatred while reducing the fear. What we need is a U.S. plausibly able to say Do what we ask or to hell with you. That is willing to contemplate the collapse of a "moderate" regime in Arabia or Egypt and therefore able to confront the whole Arab world as the agent of democracy human rights modernity. In other words more pain now less pain later. Instead the Bush administration is holding on for dear life to anything that remains of the old more comfortable Middle Eastern order. This is what is implied in the invitation to Prince Abdullah to be the first unelected world leader let in the ultimate inner sanctum Mr. Bush's ranch in Crawford Texas. It is an unambiguous way to say to him We may have our differences, but you are still in the club. I would guess the intention is to use the old club for one last try at peace between Israel and the Arabs. Optimism is a virtue but confidence would be carrying the appearances too far. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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